A telephone card, calling card or phone card is a card used to pay for telephone services. Such cards can use a prepaid system or credit-based system. The exact system for payment and use of the card depends on the telecommunication company. Currently, the most common types of telephone cards involve pre-paid credit where the card is purchased with a specific balance and the cost of calls made is deducted from the balance. Pre-paid phone cards are disposable. When the balance is exhausted another card is bought. Additionally, cards can often be refilled. There are also “post-paid” calling cards where the card includes a PIN and allows one to charge calls to a land-line telephone account.
To use a calling card a user must first find a vendor that sells the appropriate calling card. Many times these vendors are on-line and finding local vendors may be challenging. Additionally, there a various types of calling cards that can be used for domestic calls and others for international calls. With respect to international calls, the user may also have to specify the country or group of countries that are associated with the calling card. When purchasing the calling card there is the minimum price for purchasing the card that may go unused. Thus, if the user needs to make a short international call or communicate an SMS message or short voice message, the user must pay the minimum price and possibly throw away the card.
The use of a calling card may be further complicated because the user may first have to dial the numbers printed on the calling card, then the PIN number, and finally the destination number. This process is time consuming, especially in light of the call duration.
There are various alternatives to calling cards in other jurisdictions. For example in India, there are public telephones to make domestic calls and telephones that support international calls referred to as International Subscriber Dialing (ISD) phones. Thus, to make an international call in India—rather than using a calling card—a person directly dials the destination number from an ISD phone.
However, there are limitations to ISD phone service in that there are a limited number of ISD phones. With respect to wireless handsets, ISD service is enabled by the service provider or carrier if the subscriber has requested ISD service. However, there may be instances when a user does not have ISD service but still has a need for limited or temporary ISD service. However, even if the user desires limited or temporary use of ISD service, they cannot access ISD service.